[copied from my earlier Note on Facebook]
(With a nod toward my friend Nakia), I'm considering writing up my thoughts on my current D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) game that I run on alternating Fridays. However, I'm not sure of the value of doing this. I've tried to write a recurring blog on several previous occasions, only to fizzle out after a few entries. I'm not going to kid myself into thinking that I'm going to get a bunch of readers or even a smattering of passing interest. I guess I'm going to write this only to serve my own interest in talking about my favorite pasa tiempo.
To bring the unaware up to speed, I run a game every other Friday with a core group of 3 guys. We've had other players come and go and we currently sit at 4 players. As we currently stand, I am in recruiting mode for another player or three. The game is set in the Original D&D world of Mystara. I try to make my game grand in scope and currently the characters find themselves in the middle of a desperate quest to stop the villains from destroying the world.
For this first blog entry, I'll talk about my gaming history. I was first introduced to D&D by my older cousin Isaac. I think he asked if I wanted to play one day while they were visiting San Diego from Phoenix. I remember playing a fighter and somehow find a Sword That Breaks Rock. I doubt we played for more than an hour or two, but I was hooked. At some point later down the timeline, I bought (or was gifted) the Red Box (Mentzer version). I don't recall playing the game very often. More often than not, I just made characters. If I was lucky, some family member would humor me and make a character. I remember my Mom, Becky, making a character named "Beaky". And when I say "making a character", I mean she was doing chores and cooking a meal while I sat at the dinner table and asked her questions. Generally, my memory is pretty poor, but I remember this very clearly because it is when I first learned how to pronounce "prerequisite", one of the many words in the rules of which I didn't know the definition.
I remember sometime in late middle school or early high school of playing with my almost step-brother Dean. He and I had very similar tastes in gaming. We used to sit for hours at the computer and play Command & Conquer or X-Wing. I acquired the Expert Set, around this time, which broadened my horizons to include wilderness encounters. Within this set was the module X-1: The Isle of Dread. I was hooked for life on D&D once I read through that module. It was everything I loved about Indiana Jones and other great adventure stories: an unexplored wilderness, a lost civilization, dinosaurs, huge piles of treasure, and death in every direction.
I don't recall how or when, but my high school clique became interested in D&D. I look back on it now and realize that some of my friends were only there for the camaraderie of the group, but at the time such rational analysis was beyond my grasp. We started with the same ol' Red Box and went through the Isle of Dread and into the Blue Box. Right away I realized that I wanted to take this group to higher levels, yet I could not find the Companion Set nor Immortal Set. Luckily, I came across the Rules Cyclopedia, which was an updated version of all 4 boxed sets. I ran the group up to 36th level and into Immortality, albeit the game was very rushed toward the end, for reasons you'll read shortly.
As my first true campaign was winding down, I really got into Advanced D&D. I loved the more powerful play it seemed to provoke. My high school group transitioned into AD&D sometime around the summer of my rising junior year. Many of our other friends were also into roleplaying, which expanded my horizons to the Forgotten Realms and Drangonlance. That Christmas, my wish list only consisted of AD&D books, and I made out like a bandit.
It was at this time that I became aware of what a campaign truly was. Beforehand, I just threw a bunch of somewhat-random encounters together, and my players didn't seem to mind. But now, I realized that I could weave together an overarching plot easier than I imagined. I didn't have to plan out every detail in advance. I could let things flow more naturally and then tie them together as the situations came around. For example, the players encountered several goblin tribes attacking the local farming areas. Once they had this cleared up, they realized that the tribes were being lead by an evil magic user. And this evil-doer reported up the food chain to bigger and tougher baddies. And behind the proverbial curtain was the Plot of Doom (TM).
This campaign ran until we left high school. I even stepped away from the Dungeon Master side and played in a few games for the first time in years. I was too much of a control freak to get into this and never let the characters develop.
Without a group to play with, my college gaming life withered away to nothing. I began collecting D&D books for their reading value and let my imagination do the rest. I tried to get into the gaming group on campus, but didn't for 2 big reasons. #1: I didn't live on campus (actually 45 minutes away) and I had a hard time making the evening sessions and work my job as well. #2: UCSD is a nerdy campus, and the gaming group was the cream of the crop. I saw (and smelled) them and turned away quickly. I still maintained my subscription to Dungeon magazine, and I own every issue from around #12 to #150 when it stopped being published. I failed to mention that my high school group playtested several adventures for Dungeon mag and we have our (mis-spelled) names listed in its contents.
I bought the core rulebooks for 3rd edition when it came out, despite having nobody to play with. But when I got married and eventually moved to Charlotte, Erika helped me get back into gaming. She practically forced me to go to the local gaming shop and check it out. I joined a game and met some really cool (and a few very odd) people. 2 years later, I've played in probably 6 long-term games (although they've mostly gone away) and several short games. I've played in a game with the reigning RPG Superstar 2009. I'm now running a game that is nearing its 9-month anniversary. I have every intention of taking this game to the very end, as long as my players will have me.
I know that I've grown as a DM over the years. I know that I have room to grow. I was recently turned on to a blog by a guy with a game that has lasted over 11 years. I hope to one day be able to say that I've run a game that lasted this long.
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